20% electric cars quota comes into force.

[Haliotis]

Despite all the misgivings surrounding EVs, the government’s quota, that 20% of all Cars sold must be electric, is still applicable.  For the dealerships, does this only mean new cars, or all cars on their forecourts?  How do the sales personnel manipulate prospective customers into going electric?  My choice of buying a hybrid was based upon my own opinions, and not open to negotiation.  If I change again, it is likely that I will go back to a diesel car - part of thi thinking is the recent reported hike in EV insurance due to problems with repairs and aftercare.  Could there become a time when a dealer might say, “Sorry, but I can only sell you an electric car because I would otherwise breech my quota”?

[AndyN01]

I'm a firm believer that stats/targets/quotas/whatever you want to call them are a nonsense.

All that happens is that the "figures" are adjusted/manipulated/generally mucked about with to get whatever answer "they" want while completely missing the point and failing to actually deliver the result that really matters.

Andy.

 

[Haliotis]

They may be a nonsense in the real world, Andy, but the government sets great store by them and, as you say, “uses them to get the answer that they [the government] want.” And, in the case of the 20% quota (the minimum) for electric cars, the financial penalty is the stick intended to ensure the quota is met.

The probability of problems on many fronts (technical and infrastructure) are of no concern to the government - once an EV is purchased, any difficulties in its viability is the owner’s worry.

[FROSTYBALLS]

The mandate sets minimum annual targets, starting with a requirement for 22% of new cars sold in 2024 to be zero emission (rather than electric). This will rise each year up to 100% by 2035, although some manufacturers already plan to reach 100% sooner.

[Mojo1010]

As said numbers can be manipulated, generally its the fleet that will make the majority of this percentage figure. Car manufacturers certainly will not be turning consumers down for ice and certainly hybrids. 

[Guest]

The manufacturers and dealers will surely be grateful for anything they can sell you that puts money in their respective pockets. And that's the way it should be really (I'd be concerned about anybody who wants anything more than or different from my money). 

The manufacturers also would have an interest in trying to go back to governments with figures and sales data and say "Look! We've discounted EVs, applied your grants, had them in stock with fast delivery and STILL we're getting huge demand for our engine cars".  At some stage, and we might not be there yet, the government must respond to and pull back its hard line EV initiatives if over time, there is a true and undeniable preference / demand from the people as voted by how they choose to spend their money (or in all likelihood, the limit of what we can afford to spend on a car and how we get so much more in an ICE variant over EV).  

Toyota is fine at least until 2035 now with the Hybrid setup it has, despite clickbait petty little articles from the car press and eco terrorists like Greenpeace trying to 'name and shame' them for being non eco friendly. I think Toyota knows the score and that in reality, the Hybrid model as in Toyota cars is the best (on a mass scale and practicality scale) solution anybody has brought to market yet. That's 11 years away. Think what the car market was like 11 years ago. We were still paying a premium to get a diesel engine. We thought the Toyota Touch 2 with Go was an improvement!!! Who knows what it'll be like come 11 years time. 

I think the dealers might try and tempt you, as they are now. I see mostly Bz4x promos from my local Toyota's Facebook posts. I see it pushed quite a lot in Toyota UK's ads. There are definitely more resources put into marketing it and trying to incentivise it with deals more than other models. That's all they can do realistically though.  If that doesn't work, they'll hardly want you to walk across the road and buy a competitors car with an engine. And I think that feeling will be reciprocated across most manufacturers. 

Personally though, until I get a decent answer about EVs impact on the environment from Battery production and the welfare of the children used to mine it, and the issue of EVs being coal powered since our grid can't sustain them... I'll keep ignoring the misinformation that they're a 'green' initiative. They most certainly are not and because we are a first world country with freedom of thought, I'll continue to think that until a non-biased, rational and transparent source can truly explain to me what I'm missing or why I'm wrong. I'd welcome the news, honestly. 

[Rhymes with Paris]

Of course, the headline figure of 20% even if achievable, means that 80% of sales need not be electric.

That's a lot of new cars, and a lot of those will feed down for sale used when coming off lease and fleet etc, I think.

Some of my friends get the vapours when reading headlines, one of them was panicking, thinking that he will be forced to scrap his 2014 car, and made to buy a new electric car at £30,000 + this year.

I tell him, don't worry,be happy, nothing will affect he and I unless we somehow live long enough to receive a telegram from the monarch, and are still driving.

[Cyker]

It's just the sale of new cars, and I reckon i'll mean more old cars will get repaired and put back into circulation rather than scrapped, and car manufacturers will have to pivot to support older vehicles through parts and repair to maintain a revenue stream as demand for unsuitable new vehicles declines, at least until Battery tech and charging infrastructure stop being rubbish.

 

[Bper]

The SMMT had warned this week that the end of incentives such as grants for electric cars for private buyers was undermining mass market demand, with the growth in EVs as a share of all new UK car sales slowing to about 16%, while most sales were to corporate buyers only.

Britain could need up to 20 more nuclear power stations should the electric car replace the petrol engine.

Research by Transport for London suggests a switch to an all-electric fleet in the city would cause a 'massive strain' on the network due to the amount of power needed to recharge vehicles' batteries.It comes days after the Department for Transport announced measures to boost electric vehicle use.According to the Times, the TfL research said 'green' cars in the city would need between seven and eight gigawatt-hours per year, roughly the equivalent to the amount of electricity produced by two nuclear power stations.

 

[Big_D]

8 hours ago, Haliotis said:

 My choice of buying a hybrid was based upon my own opinions, and not open to negotiation.

I agree. If I am paying for the car, I want to buy what I want, and not what they want to sell me.

 

 

 

[Haliotis]

The only thing that concerns me is how the government may push people into the EV market by manipulating the vehicle excise duty and/or taxation on petrol and diesel. In addition to this, there must come a point when sales of petrol and diesel become less profitable to the fuel stations than does trade from EV points.  And, of course, the government again can generate sway by financial temptation to towards the EV stations, and discouragement to sell petrol and diesel. Governments are very good at this, being professional con artists, even if they are rubbish at everything else.

[yossarian247]

I gather that manufacturers can buy and sell surplus quota to one another too. So, Tesla for example who have no need of any ICE quota at all, can sell their 78% share to other manufacturer/s if they wish. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bper said:

that the end of incentives such as grants for electric cars for private buyers was undermining mass market demand, with the growth in EVs as a share of all new UK car sales slowing to about 16%, while most sales were to corporate buyers only

Any time I've looked into EVs, going back around a decade ago to the Vauxhall Ampera and e-Up!, I saw the price and thought wow...   thank god there's a government grand. Only to find that those prices already had it included..   Good luck to them trying to sell them at full cost price without government help.  

I don't see Apple or Samsung having to reach into the governments pockets when they come out with some crazy new innovation that some of us don't like the sound of, only to find that we can't live without it once we try it.  If EVs were as great as they say, I reckon with as many people who have bought them now (we all know at least one person who bought one) - is all it would have taken for most of us to be saying "I'll be replacing my car with one next".  Cars aren't phones. But the same principle of justifying the expense and genuinely wanting to embrace a new technology as such, is the same. 

1 hour ago, Bper said:

Britain could need up to 20 more nuclear power stations should the electric car replace the petrol engine.

I wish they would build more, maybe not 20, but more so that we can power things in the cleanest way we know as of today. And stop wasting our time and money mining, digging, finding and refining oil, destroying our scenery with windmills and affecting sea life with offshore and sea energy generation sites.  

That's what gets me about all of these things. I'm not a climate denier. I'm just a "Well folks, if this truly is an emergency, then why are you telling us to all live in poverty for a non-solution?"..  Read a manifesto from Boris' time in government when our government really pushed it forward with the EV thing.  Did not explain a single pain point or fear point I had as a consumer at all. Literally just a self-serving list of the biggest headline grabbing things they could think of (which sadly we might have to commit to one day) along the lines of 'green this, green that'.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Haliotis said:

manipulating the vehicle excise duty and/or taxation on petrol and diesel.

I just renewed mine yesterday. It's up around £30. 

but that got me thinking..  Frankly, they could charge me £1,000 per calendar year in VED for my Avensis. It STILL wouldn't make it any cheaper than buying an EV, even a cheap lousy one. I'd still be better, paying £83 a month... plus my finance.. plus diesel.  They could double diesel to £3 a litre too and while I'd cut back, I'd still not go out and finance an EV. 

They can honestly bring it on. 

They do things like I say above, and they'll make our society and economy and the way we'd have to live a crown-jewel of a joke for a first world country. We'd be getting laughed at by the EU countries, America, and all the usual non first world countries that seem to have it in for us. I don't think out government will take it that far. 

I'd ride a bike before I got forced into spending so much of my personal (non substantial) income on their crap like forced EVs. Although in thinking, maybe that's what they want 'the rest of us' to do while they have their multiple properties, back hander payments and fleet of supercars / driven for them travel options and government funded security at all times. 

[Big_D]

12 minutes ago, Haliotis said:

The only thing that concerns me is how the government may push people into the EV market by manipulating the vehicle excise duty and/or taxation on petrol and diesel. In addition to this, there must come a point when sales of petrol and diesel become less profitable to the fuel stations than does trade from EV points.  And, of course, the government again can generate sway by financial temptation to towards the EV stations, and discouragement to sell petrol and diesel. Governments are very good at this, being professional con artists, even if they are rubbish at everything else.

In my opinion, this is already happening. Look at the cost of insurance which, by law, we must have. Look at how the price of fuel has gone through the roof. What about charges such as the ULEZ, etc. Then there is the cost of the rising VED. 

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, Big_D said:

What about charges such as the ULEZ, etc.

I've gotten into a new niche on YouTube of watching one of the many channels of everyday folks giving them a hard time (the ULEZ people). Blade runner or something like that, one of the persistent guys is.  I think he lost his job over the head of it so he's made it a full time career to harass them within the confines of the law (as far as we know). 

[Bper]

41 minutes ago, Haliotis said:

The only thing that concerns me is how the government may push people into the EV market by manipulating the vehicle excise duty and/or taxation on petrol and diesel. In addition to this, there must come a point when sales of petrol and diesel become less profitable to the fuel stations than does trade from EV points.  And, of course, the government again can generate sway by financial temptation to towards the EV stations, and discouragement to sell petrol and diesel. Governments are very good at this, being professional con artists, even if they are rubbish at everything else.

The Government are professional con artists? Never! Their achievements are second to none:-

40 new hospitals built 

HS2 finished

300,000 houses completed every year

Lowest energy prices in the world

Petrol prices the lowest ever

New Nuclear power stations built 

Lowest transport costs ever

Lowest food prices

Small boats stopped

Immigration backlog resolved 

EV charging points installed nationwide

Highest pensions in Europe

Pot holes filled and roads resurfaced nationwide

London underground cleanest air environment ever

The best Members of parliament in history

The NHS backlog totally cleared

Food banks abolished

Crime down nationally

New Prisons built

Prison population at its lowest

Inflation at its lowest

 

So facts are facts😂

 

[Bper]

15 minutes ago, SB1500 said:

I've gotten into a new niche on YouTube of watching one of the many channels of everyday folks giving them a hard time (the ULEZ people). Blade runner or something like that, one of the persistent guys is.  I think he lost his job over the head of it so he's made it a full time career to harass them within the confines of the law (as far as we know). 

Blade runners have been cutting down the ULEZ camera's since it expanded along with blocking the detection camera's view of the vans employed by Sadiq Khan. They say they will not stop until it is abolished. 

[Cyker]

Next we just need an injunction preventing him from wasting any more taxpayer money on putting them back up, instead of using it on the critical services he keeps complaining he doesn't have enough money to fund, and it'll be check mate!

[Rhymes with Paris]

You'd think that there was a big curtain separating countries from each other, and stopping air pollution in one place affecting another.

Not so,as I know only too well when we get Sahara sand dust pollution here, and it exacerbates my COPD and asthma, also the "zero" emissions incineration plant just outside the city, I can smell it, and choke on it.

As in if I understand the figures correctly,UK co2 emissions including shipping and aircraft are around 1% of the total around the world.

So if I believed all the political reasons for pushing zero emissions in this country, which the tiny % would make little if any difference worldwide ,even if all this was true, and the result of industrial age onwards pollution, and not natural climate change patterns caused by other cycles which are completely beyond the control of politicians.

So in the meantime China churns out EVs, manufactured with power from increasing numbers of coal fired power stations, and we are supposed to buy them, contributing to the impoverishment of a country and it's people, that is hell bent on a meaningless net zero economic suicide.

The hypocrisy is astounding.

[Haliotis]

Oh, how disappointed all the activists will be, when they discover that the real threat to the planet is excessive population growth, which will produce food shortages, death rates at an earlier age due to breakdown of the infrastructures, AND increase in the levels of CO2 !!!

[Cyker]

35 minutes ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

Not so,as I know only too well when we get Sahara sand dust pollution here, and it exacerbates my COPD and asthma, also the "zero" emissions incineration plant just outside the city, I can smell it, and choke on it.

Oh tell me about it; It still astounds me how half the Sahara manages to get under my Yaris' bonnet every time it blows over here!

I just wake up and bam the engine bay's a child's sandpit. How does it all get in there?! Is the Sandman real?? Did I inadvertently insult his mother and now he's out for revenge?? It's even embedded in the plastic cover of the fusebox and I can't shift it!

Maybe I should have gotten the Supagard applied to the whole engine bay instead of just the outside!!  

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

23 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Oh tell me about it; It still astounds me how half the Sahara manages to get under my Yaris' bonnet every time it blows over here!

I just wake up and bam the engine bay's a child's sandpit. How does it all get in there?! Is the Sandman real?? Did I inadvertently insult his mother and now he's out for revenge?? It's even embedded in the plastic cover of the fusebox and I can't shift it!

Maybe I should have gotten the Supagard applied to the whole engine bay instead of just the outside!!  

 

Maybe the imaginary curtain I mentioned, earlier in the thread could be deployed to stop the Saharan sand dust.

If it can stop the UK polluting China, surely it can stop a bit of dust from Africa.

Yes, it's annoying stuff, but the sandman will exact his revenge.

I tape up my panel gaps with gaffer tape when an attack is imminent, but it's a hell of a mess, leaves sticky residue on the bonnet.

 

[yossarian247]

11 hours ago, Haliotis said:

Oh, how disappointed all the activists will be, when they discover that the real threat to the planet is excessive population growth, which will produce food shortages, death rates at an earlier age due to breakdown of the infrastructures, AND increase in the levels of CO2 !!!

Completely agree. Worrying about CO2 emissions whilst ignoring population growth is 'rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic' in my opinion. 

[Bper]

1 hour ago, yossarian247 said:

Completely agree. Worrying about CO2 emissions whilst ignoring population growth is 'rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic' in my opinion. 

While the global population continues to reach new highs, demographic experts have pointed out that the annual growth rate has consistently declined to below 1 percent. Based on these projections, the world's population is expected to peak at about 10.4 billion people in the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100.